Our book club recently read Laura Moriarty’s book, “The Chaperone,” which follows the life of middle-aged Cora, a fictional character who accompanies the teenaged Louise Brooks (a real person who was a silent film star back in the 1920s) on a summer trip to New York City so Louise can try out for the Denishawn School of Dance. I won’t bore you with the all the details, but it seemed to me that the theme of the book was Cora gradually learning to shed many of the prejudices, social restrictions and strict morals of the early 1900s to grow into an more open-minded and accepting person. In other words, Cora begins to embrace many of the more modern attitudes we have today, which is of course, a good thing.
I would never want to go back to the days of racial segregation, when it was illegal to be anything other than heterosexual, before women had the right to vote, or when polio, tuberculosis, and a host of other diseases were far too common. I don’t miss cooking before the invention of the microwave oven, and as much as it annoys me, I can no longer imagine living without my cell phone. But I have to admit that there are still a few aspects of “the good old days” that I actually do miss.
I miss the days when it was safe for children to roam the neighborhood, riding bikes and playing with friends, and when games were the products of their imaginations rather than structured leagues, organized and run by adults. I miss the days when television sets had only a few channels, because then I wasn’t tempted to waste quite so much time watching it. (Which is why no house of mine will ever boast a “home theater.”) I miss the days when people often sat on their front porches in the evening, chatting together and watching the world go by.
While I certainly appreciate air conditioning, I also miss falling asleep at night while listening to the sounds of crickets and cicadas, and the sweet smell of the occasional cooling breeze that came in through our opened windows. I miss the excitement of getting an actual letter from a far away friend or relative, and how eagerly I would open it, read the contents, and then carefully tuck it away for safekeeping. I know emails are more convenient and much quicker, but I honestly can’t remember the last time I was actually excited to get one.
Of course I am aware that our world has changed for the better in many, many ways, and I appreciate that. But as an introvert who has never quite mastered the art of multi-tasking, and as someone who really values having a bit of peace and quiet each day, I also believe that some of the changes I have lived through have made the world a bit faster-paced, a bit more intrusive, and a bit more impersonal than I would like it to be. I don’t want to abandon the modern world, but I admit that there are times when I wish I could just take a break from it, at least for a little while.
I’m not sure why, but I was really looking forward to Easter this year. I bought a bunch of Easter cards and sent them out to various friends and family, filled several candy dishes with chocolate eggs and other colorful candies, and even broke out my “Easter ornament tree” much earlier than I usually do. I told my extended family that I wanted to have the after-church Easter brunch at my house this year, and looked up a few new recipes to serve. Maybe it’s the early spring we are enjoying, since it means we have flowers and beautiful budding trees everywhere I look, but in the past few weeks, I have been more than ready for a fun and festive Easter celebration.
Spring cleaning means that windows must be washed, wooden furniture must be polished, and dust bunnies must be hunted down and destroyed. My winter clothes are packed up in plastic bins, and my spring clothes are unpacked and stored neatly (sorted according to style, color and sleeve length) in my dresser or closet. Daffodils are cut from my garden and arranged carefully in a vase on the mantel. I fill several bags with donations for Good Will, and hit the local malls in hope of finding a couple of new spring outfits that both fit and flatter. I’m rarely successful, but I still try.
The book was going to be used in high school English classes, even though it was supposed to be written at the fifth-grade reading level. I had both a word list and a mathematical formula that determined how often the words on the list had to be used in the book, and they wanted the finished manuscript in their offices in a little over three weeks. It wasn’t easy, but I met the deadline, mailed in my manuscript, and eagerly waited for the first check I had earned from my writing that would actually be in the four digits.
Being me, I’m sure I said a lot of things to my friend about her father’s death, but I don’t remember them and I doubt that they provided her with any comfort. What gave her comfort was seeing my son and me in that church, supporting her in her loss. Because what people who are overwhelmed or grieving really need is simply the assurance that you are there with them in their time of trouble, right beside them as they walk that difficult path. Just like my childhood friend and I, running hand-in-hand to school all those years ago.
We seem to be living in a time when there is a lot to be angry about, and we are reminded of it daily. The news media is full of stories of all sorts of injustices, and even if we turn off the news, we see plenty of injustice in our day-to-day lives. Too often good manners are replaced with rudeness and discourtesy, and who hasn’t spent far too much time on hold with what some company laughingly refers to as their customer service department? The Presidential campaign is heating up, generating plenty of anger on both sides, and it seems as if just keeping our heads above water in a struggling economy is becoming more difficult by the day. Any way you look at it, there is plenty to stoke our anger.
Of course there will always be times when I lose my temper and say and do things that I shouldn’t. But I don’t want to revel in those times, fooling myself into thinking that just because my anger is justified that it’s actually helpful. I’ve seen far too many people get stuck in that unproductive and unhappy “angry at the world” mode to want to be a part of that. Instead, I want to apologize to whomever I snapped at, and then take some deep breaths, go for a run around the block, call a neutral friend who is kind enough to let me vent, or do whatever it takes to calm myself down. And then I want to look at the situation with fresh eyes and the question, “Is there something I can do to make this better?”
I was born in 1958, which means I was raised during a time when information wasn’t as accessible as it is today. Our household had one television with four channels, one radio, and one telephone which we all shared. There was no internet, no personal computers, and no one had a cell phone with the ability to call, text, email, and both take and share photos. We got our news from daily newspapers and nightly newscasts, and we stayed in touch with faraway friends and family mostly through letters, because long-distance phone calls were expensive. By today’s standards, we lived very isolated lives.
Please don’t think I’m complaining, because I’m not. For one thing, I understand that complaining isn’t gong to make me young again, and I also recognize that there are many advantages to being middle aged. Honestly, I not only accept my “new normal,” I have come to appreciate it. Because I know that it won’t be so very long before I’ll hit the age when I have yet another “new normal” to deal with, and something tells me it’s not going to be as nice as this one.
I’m not exactly what you would call an motivated person. I don’t spring out of bed in the morning, ready and eager to face the challenges of the day ahead. My New Year’s resolutions are usually more along the line of “I will try to be more patient and tolerant with people who annoy me,” rather than “I will publish a book, run a marathon, and become chairman of the board of a worthy charity.” Left to my own devices, I’m perfectly capable of wasting an entire day just puttering about the house, happily organizing my photo albums, re-reading a favorite book, or cleaning out the junk drawer.
Muddling Through My Middle Age 